Move VM on ESIX 5.5 to New Environment

[Phoutharkone]

Dear Brother

I have esxi 5.5 and vCenter 5.5 Enterprise Plus , environment OS and Data base list below
I plan to buy new Server hardware and VMware( vCenter 7 downgrade able) this soon to build as new environment at the same location and going to use Veeam 11 license to move all of this vm

No. OS vCPU Memory HDD 1 HDD 2 HDD3 HDD4 data base
1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (64bits) 4 CPU 16GB 50GB 300GB informix 9
2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (64bits) 4 CPU 8GB 50GB 80GB DB2
3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (64bits) 4 CPU 8GB 50GB 100GB 600GB 600GB Oracle

My question is, can I use Veeam to Backup/Replicate function to move all of this VM to new environment safety ? and how about the Data base will work normally ?
What other information I have to know and prepare for this , please give suggestion for best practice on this scenario

Thank you in advance

[veremin]

Your scenario looks valid, once both servers are added to backup console, you can configure replication job to replicate VMs between them. And when initial replication cycle is over, you can use planned failover which will not only synchronize the latest VM state, but also will switch the workloads (failover) after doing that.

Thanks.

[Phoutharkone]

Your scenario looks valid, once both servers are added to backup console, you can configure replication job to replicate VMs between them. And when initial replication cycle is over, you can use planned failover which will not only synchronize the latest VM state, but also will switch the workloads (failover) after doing that.

Thanks.

Dear @Veremin Thank you so much for your reply, I would like to know where can I check compatible vCenter/esxi version of my New environment that Veeam able to support ?
example: can I just backup/replicate from my environment 5.5 to 6.5 first or I can direct to vCenter/esxi 7 ?
and How about Database that I mention, it would be working normally or what I should prepare.

Thank you.

[Egor Yakovlev]

You can replicate 5.5 > 7 without intermediate hosts.

Also consider:
- in Replication Job settings, you can manually select some test(isolated) Network to connect your replica machines to, and after first replication, launch test failover(not Planned Failover, as it will shut down production machines!) to verify that replica machines are in the state you want them to be. You can log on the replica machines, confirm DBs are healthy and after that, hit an Undo Failover and that will roll replica state back to vanilla and shut them down to continue replication processes.
- you can use SureReplica function, to run a Veeam-driven, isolated lab with replica machines to play \ test \ validate them before actual switch as well.

Both test procedures will have 0 effect on the original running machines and can be performed with a cup of coffee today, to make sure everything that will happen after clicking Planned Failover tomorrow is predictable, known and well-polished in advance.

/Cheers!

[veremin]

And you can check official compatibility matrix here. Thanks!

[Phoutharkone]

You can replicate 5.5 > 7 without intermediate hosts.

Also consider:
- in Replication Job settings, you can manually select some test(isolated) Network to connect your replica machines to, and after first replication, launch test failover(not Planned Failover, as it will shut down production machines!) to verify that replica machines are in the state you want them to be. You can log on the replica machines, confirm DBs are healthy and after that, hit an Undo Failover and that will roll replica state back to vanilla and shut them down to continue replication processes.
- you can use SureReplica function, to run a Veeam-driven, isolated lab with replica machines to play \ test \ validate them before actual switch as well.

Both test procedures will have 0 effect on the original running machines and can be performed with a cup of coffee today, to make sure everything that will happen after clicking Planned Failover tomorrow is predictable, known and well-polished in advance.

/Cheers!

Dear Egor

Please help explain more on "You can replicate 5.5 > 7 without intermediate hosts."

Thank you

[Egor Yakovlev]

1. Under Backup Infrastructure > Managed Servers add ESXi 5.5 vCenter\Hosts
2. Under Backup Infrastructure > Managed Servers add ESXi 7 vCenter\Hosts
3. Create VM replication job, where Source are machines that reside on (1) and Target is (2)
Done

It might be worth checking out Backup Proxy concept, as making sure that each infrastructure has at least one proxy server might boost replication performance, depending on your infrastructure.